VATICAN CITY -- They are both septuagenarians in the autumn of their reigns, Pope John Paul II and Cuban President Fidel Castro. One helped topple communism in his native Poland, the other has vowed to redeem it in Cuba.
But after nearly two decades of studiously avoiding and sometimes criticizing each other, il papa and el comandante are carefully edging toward a summit in Rome next month.
Vatican officials say they are not interested in a mere photo opportunity and are seeking what they call ``substantial concessions'' from the Cuban government:
Havana must allow the local Roman Catholic Church a greater role in education, legally recognize its agencies, give it a fair voice in the government-controlled media and relax visa restrictions on foreign missionary priests and nuns.
If it all works out, the 70-year-old Castro will get an audience with the 76-year-old pope and the pontiff will then make his first visit to Cuba, probably by October of next year, Vatican officials say.
Diplomatic gears are clearly turning in the right direction, with one church official saying the Vatican audience is ``almost set'' while the papal trip to Cuba is ``less certain, needing more work.''
Still under discussion for the Cuba trip: John Paul wants open-air Masses with unlimited attendance and what church officials call ``standard'' media dissemination of his program. Cuba wants mostly indoor Masses and a low-key schedule.
Much, of course, depends on the pontiff's health. He underwent an appendectomy Tuesday, has appeared rundown in recent months and is widely believed to suffer from Parkinson's disease. Castro, though also said to suffer from various ailments, seems hea lthy in comparison.
But the pope has kept Cuba high on his travel priority list -- after Sarajevo and Lebanon, say Vatican experts -- as the only Latin American nation besides Guyana and Suriname that he has not visited in his 18-year reign.
Havana took the first steps in the process of inviting the pontiff to Cuba in mid-1989, but then dropped the matter without a public explanation as communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and Cuba went into an economic tailspin.
Havana believes it would benefit from a papal visit, which would focus world attention on John Paul's longtime criticism of the U.S. trade embargo and add to Castro's international standing.
``The church in Cuba has quietly grown strong in the past years, and a trip here by the pope would be a public affirmation of that power,'' said one Havana parish priest in a telephone interview.
A papal visit would give a significant morale boost to a Cuban church that one Vatican official described as ``perhaps on the cautious side after years of pressures'' under the ruling Cuban Communist Party.
``Our mission is evangelical and we are not dissidents or agents of political change,'' said the priest in Havana. ``But we are the biggest nongovernment institution here, and should get more freedom for our labors.''
Working quietly, afraid the government will close them if there's too much publicity, Cuban churches for some time have been running welfare programs, such as food and medical dispensaries, that are common around the world but unusual under a governmen t that boasts it provides basic services for all.
Church officials are also considering starting revolving loan funds and accounting classes for small-scale enterprises, and some have begun work on human rights issues.
Also expected to visit Cuba soon is John Paul's personal diplomatic troubleshooter, French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who has been to Cuba four times and had a four-hour private meeting with Castro, church sources said.
Castro will be in Rome for a World Food Summit Nov. 13-17 sponsored by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization -- ``it's not official, but he's coming,'' said one summit organizer -- and will ask for a papal audience.
``If Castro comes to Rome for the World Food Summit, I believe he will meet with the pope,'' Cardinal Jaime Ortega of Havana said in Rome on Wednesday, after attending a conference of Latin American priests.
The pope rarely refuses to grant audiences to heads of state, but the Vatican says it wants to ensure Castro doesn't exploit the meeting for his own purposes and that the meeting does not anger Catholic Cuban exiles.
``We have also to consider how the local church can benefit from this meeting,'' said one Vatican official. The church counts more than four million Roman Catholics on the island, though church activism is far lower.
Church work is not a problem for the revolution as long as it promotes ``love for others, selflessness, the protection of the weakest . . . the unity of the family, social justice, moral and civic virtues, love and sacrifice for the fatherland,'' a rec ent party document said.
Cardinal Ortega, appointed by John Paul, welcomed the document.
``If things keep going as they are now, there could be a real state-church dialogue,'' he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
But Vatican officials say they want more than just nice words from a government that once imprisoned Ortega in a forced-labor camp and deported foreign priests, and has not allowed any churches to be built since 1959.
Vatican officials want the Cuban church to have ``normalized'' access to the local media and legal recognition of church programs, such as the food and medical dispensaries, that now operate at least technically outside the law.
They also want permission to open Sunday schools for children and night schools for adults, and relaxed visas for foreign priests and nuns who now make up an estimated one-third of the church's force in Cuba.
Church officials in Havana and Miami have said a papal visit to Cuba is being considered for the first half of 1997. But John Paul already has a busy schedule for that time, with trips to his native Poland in April, the Czech Republic in May and France in June.
More likely, he will add Cuba to his planned trip to Brazil next October, a Vatican source said.
The pope would then be 77 years old and on the verge of closing his 20th year in the Vatican. Castro would then be 71 and in his 39th year in power.
Copyright © 1996 The Miami Herald